Featured 1797 S-139 Large Cent "Suspect" Examples and Initial Research

I found one like this while metal detecting and the only thing I can tell is the hair from the pony tail when the coin is wet. The entire coo is practically flat.

 

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Excellent research!

Noting that the most common EF 1797 Draped Lg Cent: the reverse of '95, is $4,000 per pcgs coin values (with an AU-55 being $9,000), why would anyone buy such an expensive coin, unslabbed, on EBay?

Perhaps part of this is the hostility of US coin dealers to talk to collectors or help educate them as to what to look for in counterfeits? While slabs have many advantages one defect is that they prevent other analysis, except photography of the coins being done. Slabbed coins can't be weighed, or metals composition measured by XRF (non-destructive surface metals analysis).

With the proliferation of XRF equipment being offered, I wouldn't be surprised if this was commonly used by TPA's for counterfeit detection on all high end submissions.

 

Thank you for your reply!

Actually, the latest XRF scanners can penetrate the slabs, which is very helpful in the analysis of the coin. I have a fake US $20 "gold" piece in a fake TPG slab and a friend scanned it to measure 3% gold plate over a manganese/copper core.

 

Excellent thread. I'll add this fact. Sooner or later, every characteristic defect that is found on a counterfeit coin will be seen on a genuine specimen and the reverse is true. Every characteristic of a genuine coin will eventually show up on a counterfeit.

 

Great thread!!!

 

"Coin" came back from ICG:

 

Had a peddler come into one of our scrap yards a couple of months ago peddling a $32,000.00 XRF gun. He opened his sample box full of different copper, brass, aluminum, stainless and other non-ferrous metal alloys. He spent about 45 minutes demonstrating his device using these different samples. He then offered to take his gun and sample different items of scrap in our warehouse. I said no need. Popped open the cash register - pulled out a zincoln and said, "here sample this". You should have seen the look on his face when that penny tested at 56% copper. Pulled out another and tossed it to him and said try again. 61% copper. He left somewhat bewildered but I let him keep the coins for calibration purpose.

 

Well that confirms what I thought from another report, the XRF guns penetrate the tested object to a depth of about twice the thickness of the plating. I need to run the numbers again but I believe the plating on a cent is about .0002 inches. So the gun doesn't read strictly surface, but they don't tell you anything about the interior and could be fooled completely by a thick plating.

 

@Jack D. Young , what do you think of this one? The T in LIBERTY and the soft OF on the reverse are giving me pause.

 

There is an obverse die that has the broken T. My problem is below the B in LIBERTY. Where is the rest of her hair? The curl that you see at the right side of the upright in E should extend to under the right side of the upright of B. There looks to be a discolored spot right there between her hair and B.

 

My mistake. This is an S 140

 

We actually had a suspect S-140 returned some time back but never found a match.

 

I see what looks to be a centering dot on the reverse of the coin Jack posted.
C-B-D's coin I do not see one.

 

Now I need to go back and start looking at S-140's! Image comparison to a known genuine of the later die state on the right:

 

Well, a different post will probably be needed...
@C-B-D's post made me look at the S-140 again and I believe I found the source for the counterfeit.
Many matching marks so far:

 

Well Done!

Now, it looks like there are going to be a lot of new surprises turning up in the Large cent series. IN SPITE OF HIS MODESTY - For those who didn't know...

Jack Young and his group have exposed a number of counterfeit coins such as this that have passed all the TPGS for years! Without their work, I guarantee many of these state-of-the-art fakes would still be bought and sold as genuine!

 

In the process of writing up my summary article for this one (finally!)...

The subject example has now again been certified genuine by a top TPG: to Insider's point they may all eventually pass for genuine if the Hobby isn't diligent.

 

So did PCGS just certify genuine the original counterfeit example? I just went back and reread this whole thread and am now thoroughly confused. You do great work though!

 

PCGS certified the example I purchased, the 3rd one imaged in this post. So, NGC stated AU details, ICG counterfeit and PCGS is the latest to see it...

 

Holy ... It's time for me to stop collecting US Large Cents altogether if TPGs are certifying these as genuine. And definitely time for all early copper collectors to stop buying raw coins, especially the more expensive ones. And it's time to rejoin EAC.

Mr. Young, I thank you, sir, for this shocking and thorough research and analysis.